


Two Can Keep A Secret

by WriteThroughTheNight



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Clint Barton Friendship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 19:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6390796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteThroughTheNight/pseuds/WriteThroughTheNight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a hot night, in early September maybe, and Clint is somewhere in Brooklyn kicking ass. Well. He's about equally kicking ass and getting his ass kicked, but that's mostly because one of the assholes hit Clint's ear just right to fuck with his hearing aids and possibly give him a concussion, which is making the ground sway just a little and the douchebags seem much more nimble than usual. Clint is putting the bastards down hard anyway, when another dude steps into the fight and starts helping him out.</p><p>OR</p><p>Clint becomes best buds with the Winter Soldier and there is surprisingly little death involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Can Keep A Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Somehow I am back again with yet another Bucky and Clint friendship piece. I can't possibly do another one after this. I hope. There are of course plenty of other projects I should be working on, but I decided to break and do this instead.
> 
> All mistakes are my own, as I have no beta. 
> 
> This exists after Captain America Winter Solider and ignores Age of Ultron and everything that comes after that. I'm not ready to deal with that yet.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

Sometimes, when the walls of the Tower feel like they're closing in around him, Clint goes for a walk around New York. Clint is a country boy through and through, even if his earliest memories of wide open fields and no neighbors for miles aren't the happiest, they're still his earliest memories and sometimes New York feels suffocating, like someone trying to suck all the peace out of his bones and leave him with nothing but blaring horns and swearing cabbies.

Don't get him wrong, Clint does love New York, in some strange way that probably has to do with all the blood he's spilt in its streets and the bruises its walls have given him. The city is alive in the way Clint can't always share in, when he's remembering Loki, or SHIELD, or Phil, gone 'round the world and never home. Avengers missions help, but they don't come very often and very rarely need the entire team. A little Iron Man there, or Black Widow here and half the time the situation is handled before Clint's even rolled out of bed and grabbed his bow. 

He's not bitter, _he's not_ , even if sometimes Clint feels forgotten and useless and left behind because Nat is somewhere in Europe hanging out with Captain America and Phil is probably dropping into a war zone with his new team that is nothing as good as Strike Team Delta, and Tony and Bruce forget he exists when science comes knocking. 

Okay, fine. Clint is bitter and lonely and so he walks around New York City.

Sometimes Clint goes looking for trouble, hunting down muggers and gangs and would-be murderers. He saves an innocent or two, knocks a few teeth in, gets a few of his teeth knocked in. Other nights, Clint runs as hard as he can, over roof tops and sidewalks, through alleys and side streets. He practices his stealth and his agility because if he ever goes out on a mission again he won't be slowing anyone down, he'll prove that a regular human is just as fucking important-

Clint stays out of Hell's Kitchen because there's already one vigilante there, no room for two, but he keeps the rest of the city as his playground. 

On the nights when Clint doesn't feel like fighting or running, he just- walks. Walks and walks and sometimes grabs himself a good spot on the top of a building and watches. The city is alive, and Clint likes watching it breathe.

Nat and Phil call him occasionally. Nat's calls consist of: "No word on our missing person yet, we're still looking. Yes, Steve's a mess. Don't do anything stupid, Yastreb." Phil's calls are a little better: "Yes, I'm okay. I can't tell you where I am. I think I can swing a stopover in New York next month. I love you, Clint, take care of yourself."

But mostly, Clint is without his best friend or his husband and when he feels his skin crawling from boredom all he can do is fucking walk.

 

It's a hot night, in early September maybe, and Clint is somewhere in Brooklyn kicking ass. Well. He's about equally kicking ass and getting his ass kicked, but that's mostly because one of the assholes hit Clint's ear just right to fuck with his hearing aids and possibly give him a concussion, which is making the ground sway just a little and the douchebags seem much more nimble than usual. Clint is still taking them down because he is a trained operative and humans are not useless and he knows how to do his damn job. Clint is putting the bastards down hard, when another dude steps into the fight and starts helping him out.

Unsurprisingly, his first instinct is to yell at whoever the dark haired busy body is for messing with his fight, but then the rest of the idiots trying to attack Clint go down miraculously fast and Clint can only feel relief. His ribs ache and his head screams, so Clint flops down to the ground, closes his eyes, and just breathes for a little. It's been a long night and a long year and Clint sort of forgets that he can't hear for shit at the moment, so when a hand touches his shoulder and shakes him, he's on his feet with his fists raised before he's truly thought about his reaction. The dark haired guy looks tired and suspicious and he's barking something out that Clint can't understand. The lighting in dirty alleyways is notoriously awful and he can barely make out the guy's face, never mind his lips well enough to read them. The dude has one hand raised in the air and Clint thinks he's asking a question, but Clint is mostly alarmed by the other hand which he has shoved deep into a hoodie pocket.

The guy is just staring at him now, his eyes look a little compassionate and a lot dead, and Clint doesn't know how exactly that should make him act, but he probably shouldn't be dropping his guard and saying, as carefully as he can with his hearing fucked up,

"Sorry, you scared me. My hearing aids were damaged in the fight. I'm deaf." It's probably louder than it needs to be, but the guy obviously gets it because instead of trying to talk again, he starts signing.

Clint is so surprised he misses the first few signs. The guy's a natural.

 _Not going to hurt you. Are there more to worry about?_ The man gestures at the pile of unconscious bodies on the ground. 

Clint shakes his head, winces at the stupidity of doing that with a concussion, and says back, "No, that's all of them. Thanks for the help. You know ASL?"

The guy, who under closer inspection Clint thinks might be homeless, nods and then walks away.

"Wait!" Clint calls after him. The man doesn't stop and Clint watches his dark bun disappear into the night.

 

Clint doesn't actually tell anyone about his mysterious helper. There's not a lot of people he would tell, because his life is pretty pathetic. Tony doesn't even notice his new layer of bruises when Clint sees him a few days later, and Bruce swallows "Training accident" like it's gospel. In a way, he thinks he should be proud that his espionage skills aren't getting rusty, that Clint can still spy and sneak with the best of them, but really it just makes him ache for Nat and Phil, who would catch the lie every damn time.

He considers calling Nat, wherever she is at the moment, probably somewhere desolate and cold because Natasha Romanov's life is nothing but a constant fight against the past. Clint considers calling her and remembers how she actually sounded tired the last time they spoke. She didn't call him to come with her, join her on this impossible manhunt, even though she knew Clint was restless and bored. So Clint doesn't call her, doesn't even look at the phone.

He calls Phil instead.

"Coulson."

"Hey," Clint says, and feels something unwind in his chest, "it's me."

"Clint." Phil sighs down the phone line, and that same thing that just unwound in his chest tightens until it hurts. Clint wants to be there, wants to swallow that sigh with his mouth, turn it into something happy. He wants Phil's arms around him and a soft bed.

"I miss you." Clint whispers down the line.

He can hear Phil shifting, the sound of his suit crinkling. "I miss you too. I'll be home in a few weeks, and then I can stay a month. Just me and you."

Clint manages a smile at his feet, toes curled into the ridiculously soft carpet in his suite. Their months are never actually months, they struggle to take even two weeks because Phil is trying to rebuild SHIELD from the ground up and it's an uphill battle. Clint gets it, he does. So he says, "I can't wait", and then prods Phil into telling him about his team and his adventures.

Laughs in all the right places and exaggerated stories of Tony's brilliance and Bruce's patience help get Clint an entire hour of Phil's time. When they hang up, he tells himself it's enough and lays down in bed. 

Ten minutes of staring up at the dark ceiling later, Clint climbs out of bed, changes into his patrol clothes, and goes for a walk.

 

Two weeks later, Clint still hasn't found his mysterious benefactor. To be fair, he hasn't looked that hard. Something about the guy's shoulders, the shadows in his eyes, something told him that this man has been hunted for far too long and Clint respects that. So no, he doesn't go looking for the stranger, but he sticks to patrolling Brooklyn. Instead of his usual random route, he follows the same path over and over, gets into enough fights that he thinks for sure tall, dark, and violent will appear, but no luck.

Tonight, Clint isn't patrolling, his shoulder and knuckles still a little raw from the last time. He's sitting on a roof and breathing in the exhaust filled air, eyes closed, head tilted back. 

He doesn't hear the man approach; even with his hearing aids working perfectly, there's too much outside noise to make out the near silent footsteps.

Clint doesn't hear the man approach, but he feels it, in eyes on the back of his neck and the disturbance of the once still air.

The stranger sits down beside him, a good two feet of space between them, both their legs dangling off the roof toward the street below.

Clint opens his eyes and looks over.

The man's eyes have something a little amused about them, some humor hidden in the wrinkles. He raises his hands and signs _Hello_.

Clint smiles a little and tells him "We're all good tonight; my hearing aids are in tip top shape. You can talk."

The man rolls his eyes and says, in a voice hoarse from disuse Clint would wager, "Hello."

"What can I do for you?" Clint asks, swinging his legs and looking over the city.

"Pretty sure I should be askin' you that question. Ain't never seen anyone try so hard to get my attention before." There's a pause. "Or get into as many stupid fights in the process."

Clint can't hold in the snort. If the profile and skill wasn't enough to go by, then the accent would have confirmed it.

"Now that's a lie. You grew up with Steve fucking Rogers and that guy's a trouble magnet if I've ever seen one." Clint slouches backwards a little further, turns his attention back onto the assassin next to him. "He's also blowing up half of Europe trying to turn your head."

Clint is almost impressed at how tense Barnes gets, everything about him drawing inward, his legs freezing against the building, arm, gleaming ever so faintly, slipping out of his pocket.

Rolling his eyes, Clint relaxes his body even further. "Oh please, you've known I was an Avenger since that first night, of course I was going to figure it out. Don't get your panties in a twist, I'm not going to tell anyone."

Barnes is still tense, back ramrod straight, eyes watching Clint like he's some type of live Python. "Why." Barnes says, low enough that it makes Clint shiver. The easy way he'd spoken before is gone, never to be seen again.

Clint grins at him, as big and as obnoxious as he can make it. "Why don't you want to be found?" 

Barnes somehow hunches in on himself further. "I'm not ready yet. Please."

Clint wants to hug the guy if that wouldn't get him stabbed. He remembers being there after Loki, desperate to hide a little longer, not wanting his friends to see what he had become. "Exactly. That's why I won't say anything, and you're going to be my new bestie instead. I can keep an eye on you, make sure you don't Winter Solider on some innocent nuns, you can keep recuperating and learn not to flinch anytime someone says Steve or Captain America."

After the requisite flinch, Barnes stares at him. "You're fucking insane."

"Maybe, but I can totally kick your ass at darts."

Fingers crossed, Clint watches the indecision waver across Barnes' face. 

"You're on, Barton." Barnes says.

Clint doesn't hide his fist pump. "Alright, sweet, I know a place."

Barnes is still pretty quiet, but when they finally spill out of the bar hours later no one is dead, Clint feels happy with his new friend, and he's won at darts four times in a row. 

"Same time, same place, tomorrow night?" Clint asks Barnes' back as he walks away. He's pretty sure he's not imagining the nod.

When he gets back to the Tower, Clint spends fifteen minutes staring at his cellphone. 

He said he wouldn't tell anyone and he meant it, but now he's feeling like a bit of dick. From all reports, Nat is at the end of her rope and Cap isn't far from it. Who is Clint to hide Barnes from them? Then he thinks of Barnes, face downturned, using some of his fifty words of the night to say, "I'm not ready yet."

Nat is going to kick the shit out of him, but Clint puts the phone down. 

 

The next night, they skip the bar altogether and parkour through the city, Clint not hiding how much he's showing off and James ("Barnes makes me feel like I'm in trouble, Jesus Barton, call me James alright?" "Not Bucky?" "Not yet") matching him jump for jump. At the end of the night, they're both sweaty and dirty and Clint is newly impressed with how dexterous James' metal arm is. 

"Not bad for a regular human." James tells him. Clint kicks him as hard as he can in the shin and doesn't even feel bitter when James shrugs it off. Look at them, both making progress!

 

Two weeks later, they go to a museum during daylight hours, Clint in jeans and a beanie, because while he doesn't get recognized often it can still happen. James is almost unrecognizable, clean shaven with his own beanie and sunglasses pulled low. Half the time they spend shit talking each other, and the other half they spend planning how they would steal various artifacts. By the end of the day, Clint's laughed so hard he has tears in his eyes, and James is clutching his stomach like he's run a marathon.

 

A month later, Clint and James are in Clint's living room, shoving each other and trying to win Mario Kart when Phil unlocks the door and steps inside. JARVIS is apparently willing to help James sneak in, but not willing to alert Clint of his husband's early arrival. Clint and JARVIS will be having _words_. 

They both freeze, wide-eyed, and their players crash spectacularly on screen. 

"Uh, Phil, this isn't what it looks like?" Clint tries.

Phil is standing in the door way, arms crossed, and eyebrows raised in the classic 'I'm-not-listening-to-your-bullshit' pose.

"This is my buddy James? I, uh, must've forgotten to mention him?" Clint manages. James is white knuckling the game controller and looking like nothing but a deer in the headlights.

"If by 'buddy James'," Phil says, and Clint winces because that is the tone that moronic junior agents are intimately familiar with, "you mean James Buchanan Barnes aka Winter Soldier who is currently on the ten most wanted list, then yes, Clint, you definitely forgot to mention him."

"Oops?"

A quick glance at James has Clint wincing again because he looks like a lamb heading for the slaughter. He tries to communicate with Phil by eye contact. It probably wasn't his telepathic powers, but Phil does look at James, who is wearing his most pathetic and innocent face. 

"I'm assuming Captain Rogers doesn't know about this?" Phil says slowly. 

"No one does, not even Nat." 

Phil rubs at his temples, but Clint can feel him softening.

"Well I guess there's no use getting mad. Natasha is going to murder you anyway. I need a drink."

Neither James nor Clint so much as twitches, watching Phil leave their line of sight and reappear with a bottle of straight vodka. He sits down next to Clint, leaving a good foot of space between them. Clint sidles right up to him and presses a kiss to his cheek. "Play Mario Kart with us?"

Phil sighs. "Alright." 

Phil drapes an arm around Clint's shoulder and proceeds to absolutely destroy him and James. It's peaceful.

When James is getting up to leave, Phil stands with him. He reaches out a hand. "If Clint is keeping your secret, I will as well. It's nice to meet you, James."

Clint holds his breath, but James just smiles, small but real, and shakes Phil's hand.

"Nice to meet ya, Phil."

When the door closes behind him, Clint is there, pressing Phil to the wall and kissing him fiercely. "Thank you. I missed you. Thank you."

Phil gives as good as he gets, until Clint is the one pressed to the wall, Phil's hands burning through his clothes and lighting him on fire.

"We're going to talk about keeping secrets later, okay?" Phil breathes, sucking bruises into Clint's neck. 

"Later." Clint pants, and shoves his husband in the direction of the bedroom.

 

"So that's your fella?" James asks him a few days later over drinks.

Clint's been waiting for this, so he nods. "Yeah, my husband of three years." 

James blinks. "Two guys can get married now?" 

Clint steels himself. "Yeah, they can. You got a problem with that?" He doesn't think James will, but he takes a big sip of beer anyway as he waits for the reply.

James smirks, that ridiculous leer that has come out more and more as the former assassin relaxes and finds himself again. "Nah. Be sorta hypocritical of me, seeing as I spent my adult life sucking off Captain fuckin' America."

Clint chokes and sprays beer everywhere. James laughs and laughs and laughs.

 

A month after that, Clint is making breakfast when there's a knock on his door. He opens it and there's James, arms crossed and expression unreadable.

Clint tugs him inside and gets as far as opening his mouth to ask a question, when James says, "I'm ready." 

Clint grins and grabs his phone, leaving the eggs on the stove to burn. Nat picks up on the first ring.

"Hey, Nat? I think I found someone you guys are looking for."

 

Natasha bruises Clint's ribs and possibly breaks one of his fingers for keeping the secret, but Clint thinks it's worth it. Listening to everyone choke on air, as James climbs Steve like a tree- well, that's worth a million broken bones.


End file.
